Francesco Bagnaia's face in the post-race press conference at Phillip Island on Sunday, after finishing third in MotoGP's Australian Grand Prix, was the best imaginable projection of the 10 seconds that separated him from the victorious Marc Marquez and runner-up Jorge Martin.
Reigning two-time champion Bagnaia's gesture was one of concern, a logical reaction considering that Marquez created that gap over him despite losing ground at the start when he ran over the plastic visor that he himself had just thrown to the ground. That mishap cost him 12 positions and put him back in 13th, before he staged one of the best recoveries in recent memory to claim his third grand prix win of the season.
Leaving the Desmosedici's obvious potential aside, another key factor that led Marquez to forgo the final year of his multi-million dollar Honda contract to sign with a Ducati satellite team for 2024 was the sophistication of the protocols used by the Borgo Panigale brand to increase the overall performance of the eight bikes it currently has.
The computers that receive the information downloaded from the bikes each time they return to the garage send this data to a server, to which the authorised technicians of each team have access. Not only does this operation take place in near real-time, but it is also combined with sophisticated analysis tools, including artificial intelligence, with a very high capacity for interpretation. With this in mind, it is much easier to understand the leaps in quality made by certain riders, both from Friday to Saturday and from Saturday to Sunday, when the sprint race becomes the best generator of all that information.
"We all know that Pecco will be there to win on Sunday. It doesn't matter if he seems to suffer a little bit on Friday, because on Saturday he takes a step and on Sunday he takes another step," says any member of the grid whenever he is asked.
However, in the context of a close duel like the current one, there are ways of camouflaging information to try and complicate that improvement a little. The last event in Australia was a case in point.
The 10 seconds that split Marquez and Bagnaia's factory bike on Sunday can be explained by several factors that aligned and worked against Ducati's leading rider. First of all, the track had been resurfaced, which put the previous years' record into question. Add to this the weekend's tricky weather and we get a race with more unknowns than certainties: an ideal Sunday for Marquez's genius and Martin's explosiveness, but less conducive to the cerebral Bagnaia.
Friday morning's storm forced the organisers to cancel the first free practice session, so there was less information to gather. Second practice, already valid to generate the cut between Q1 and Q2, was the first contact with the dry but cold new asphalt.
The rain meant that Saturday's practice was held on a still-damp track, and so the pack went out for a qualifying session that seemed to bear Marquez's name as the rider who adapts best and fastest to the changes. Few expected that it would be Pramac rider Martin, with a stratospheric last lap, who would take pole by almost six-tenths over Marquez. The lap gave a preview to Martin's form ahead of his sprint race victory, while on Sunday he duelled with Marquez until reaching the conclusion that it wasn't worth risking a crash.
"Jorge was playing with us, because he was much faster" Francesco Bagnaia
"It was an incredible weekend, I scored as many points (32) as I could have hoped for here," Martin told Autosport after stepping off the podium. "I could have fought for a win or I could have crashed. I don't focus so much on the wins as on being competitive, and I think we have to continue in this vein."
Shortly before the race, someone close to him told Autosport that the strategy for the final stretch of the championship had changed. "On the circuits where we know Jorge has some margin, we will not show everything from the first moment, we are not going to give that information away," said this authoritative voice.
Martin arrived in Australia 10 points ahead of Bagnaia in the standings and will go to Thailand having doubled that advantage, with only 111 points left to play. Considering the distribution of points so far, one can see that the Spaniard has built his chances on Saturdays. In fact, in the pre-sprint era, Bagnaia would lead the standings with a 14-point cushion over the Pramac rider (295 points to Martin's 281).
On the assumption that in Buriram, where Martin won the sprint and grand prix last year, he will once again look superior to his rival, it is likely that Martin will try to hide his cards until the last moment.
"There are ways to play the game of misdirection in order not to give clues," the track engineer of one of the world champions on the grid explained to Autosport. "For example, looking for the performance of a particular sector, or plotting a particular corner, on a 'bad' lap. You always try to show your weapons as late as possible, to avoid the others, who can see your data, benefit from it."
This paddock voice has no doubt that Martin made his rivals dizzy on Saturday and that feeling was also felt by Bagnaia after the sprint: "Jorge was playing with us, because he was much faster."
All things considered, Martin will land in Thailand as the favourite to take the crown, which could be sealed in Malaysia in less than 10 days. On the other side of the scale is Bagnaia. He is not only a 'victim' of Ducati's promise not to intervene in the duel, but seems increasingly aware of the strength with which new team-mate Marquez will arrive and how the multi-champion could become the judge of this world championship.
